.. -■1 " . editorial -—.
Lobby ready for changes
The Oregon Student Lobby Saturday
tentatively voted to decrease the amount
of money it receives from the students of
the University. Currently, the OSL re
ceives $1 per year per full-time-equivalent
(FTE) student enrolled here. The OSL
now seems willing to reduce that figure to
75 cents per year.
The reduction in the University support
for the OSL is apparently a reaction to
criticism from two distinct groups: the
ASUO, which believes that the OSL is
funded too heavily by this University; and
the other member schools, which believe
that the University of Oregon dominates
the action of the OSL, and should there
fore be more heavily funded by this Uni
versity. With the University of Oregon’s
support for the organization waning, some
changes seem to be in the wind for the
OSL. And if all goes well, the changes
should be for the better.
The debate over the funding of the OSL
has been a long-standing one. Since the
inception of the OSL in 1973, the other
member schools have argued that the
OSL was controlled by the University of
Oregon. And this year, ASUO president
Gary Feldman has called for a reduction
in the University of Oregon’s support,
threatening to stop funding for the OSL
entirely. Feldman’s argument is that the
other members, especially Oregon State
University (OSU) and Portland State Uni
versity (PSU), both of which have equi
valent enrollment but pour fewer dollars
into the OSL, should carry their load.
Another important factor in the OSL this
year is that the ASUO under Gary Feld
man is taking less interest in the organiza
tion, and the OSL is not dominated by this
University any longer. According to OSL
executive secretary Dan Gamer, the Uni
versity of Oregon has diluted power this
year because Feldman is neither the
chairman nor the vice-chairman of the
organization’s Board of Directors — one
or the other of which has usually been
held by the ASUO president in the past.
Gamer also says the OSL committees are
often chaired by members of other
schools.
Gamer says the OSL funding goal for
next year will be 75 cents per full-time
V
equivalent from each member school. In
the past, the funding goal has been $1 per
student, but the University of Oregon is
one of the only schools — and it is the
largest school — supporting the OSL at
that level. Currently, the average contribu
tion is 65 cents. OSU and PSU now pay
half of the University of Oregon’s FTE
rate. Gamer says the OSL is finding more
support among the other schools for a 75
cent per FTE per year funding level.
Keeping the OSL together is perhaps
one of the most important things the stu
dent governments of the member schools
— including this school — can do. The
OSL concentrates on student con
sumerism issues, especially tuition.
The main target for the OSL is, of
course, the state legislature, where tuition
levels for universities are set. During the
1977 legislative session, the OSL worked
hard for keeping tuition down. With skilled
legislative lobbying, and with the support
of a powerful friend — State Senator Ed
Fadeley—the OSL was largely responsi
ble for gaining support in Salem to keep
tuition down. The OSL is a respected or
ganization at the legislature, and it is
taken seriously.
In addition to the legislature, the OSL
follows the activities of the State System
of Higher Education, including the State
Board and the Chancellor of Higher Edu
cation, to work for tuition controls, child
care and a myriad of other issues. The
latest plan proposed by the OSL is a loan
repayment plan which would make stu
dent loans repayable as a percentage of
income after graduation. The plan has
been revised to include a ceiling of .6 per
cent of the loan to be repaid per $1,000 of
income per year. That plan has attracted
some attention in Oregon and in Washing
ton, D.C.
The OSL is well worth funding. It now
appears that the OSL is becoming more
responsive to the desires of other schools.
If that is the case, the other schools should
be willing to respond with cash. That
would be a step in the right direction in the
evolution of the OSL. But whatever the
case, the OSL should not be allowed to
die. Its service to the students is far too
important to let that happen.
J
Letters—
‘Coming out’
After reading the article on Mari
lyn Osgood-Knight's coming out, I
was inspired by her courage to
come out of my own “closet.”
Even though I am in white skin...I
am a black. I too have been in
exile. I could never identify with
whites. I could never enjoy what I
consider white activities. Yester
day, I openly identified myself as a
black.
I tap danced since I was three...
I was a natural. I did not want to be
white. I liked eating watermelons
and playing basketball.
During Black Pride Week, I
turned around and said, "I am
black,” then stopped. I too had fi
nally confessed. The news came
as a surprise to my mother, who
was with me at the time. I re
member the moment well. I
rushed home to take inventory in
the mirror to see if my hair had
changed.
I have decided to found an or
ganization called Black-joy, in
tended to expose and kill miscon
ceptions about blacks.
I have discovered that the ma
jority of blacks actually have nor
mal white skin. My boyfriend
reacted predictably to my black
revelation. His first reaction was
“O.K., as long as nothing changes
between us, but now do I have to
learn to bump?”
I have decided to be “black celi
bate” as long as I am going with
my boyfriend. I would not go out
with blacks before and I won’t do it
now.
The day after I came out, I got
an afro...kind of a Stevie Wonder
thing. Then I said, “wait a minute,
I’m not even musical.” So I just
tinted my hair.
As part of the Black-joy, I hope
to organize the community and in
the near future bring whites and
blacks together. I hope to com
municate with the local chanter of
the KKK. I feel that I have a lot in
common with the KKK, our par
ents are white. I feel that they are
doing the best they can with the
information they have, but they
are also doing a lot of harm.
I hope that communications
such as this will help break down
stereotypes that I myself once
held true. “Blacks are not upset
with whites. Blacks cannot have a
normal, steady relationship be
cause they are over-sexed.”
These are the stereotypes and
they just are not true.
I have received some criticism
from blacks who do not under
stand why I won’t give up my white
skin.
All my life, I have known I was
different. Neither black nor white. I
too have been in exile.
J. I. Glover
Senior, Anthropology
An old friend
I was saddened today (Jan 13)
when I learned of Bernie
Freemesser’s death.
Bemie was my teacher and he
was my friend. I shall miss him, but
I shall not forget him.
Bill Beckwith
1974 Journalism Graduate
New York, N.Y.
Letters policy
The Emerald will accept and try
to print all letters and opinion col
umns containing fair comment on
ideas and topics of concern or in
terest to the University commun
ity. Letters and opinions will be run
on a first-come, first -served basis.
All letters and opinions must be
typewritten, using 65-character
margins, and should be triple
spaced. Letters and opinions
must be signed and the author’s
mainr or fan tltw cfati ic
-—-Washington today--—
Carter’s energy plan a beginning, not a cure
By WALTER MEARS
AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON —Trying to sell
his energy program, President
Carter has advertised his stalled
proposals as prescriptions for
about everything except the flu.
He doesn’t claim his program is
a cure for all the i lls the administra
tion has linked to energy, only a
treatment. But that reservation is
getting lost in the sales pitch.
As a result, the product may not
live up to expectations. At the
same time, there is also a risk that
when — and if — Congress gets
around to passing the energy
measures, they will be seen as a
solution to a problem that is not
solved that easily.
The program the White House
is pushing represents at best a
first step toward managing the
problem. When he proposed his
energy plan 10 months ago, Car
ter said as much. “It is a problem
we will not solve in the next few
years, and it is likely to get prog
ressively worse through the rest of
this century,” he said then.
That reminder is worth remem
bering as Congress returns on
Thursday, with unfinished energy
Page 4 Section A
measures still snarled in a dead
lock over natural gas price con
trols.
Even when that issue is settled,
House and Senate negotiators will
have to work out an agreement on
disputed tax proposals before
there can be final action on the
I-:
administration package of tax,
regulation and conservation
measures.
Carter has said he is confident
the bills will be approved early this
year. But there’s no guarantee of
it, and there probably is some
more selling to be done.
I
. OUST AMOTt-CR. KOOK
Distributed by fios^Ugeles'Simes' SYNDICATE
The president came back from
his seven-nation trip to report that
he found grave concern in every
foreign capital at U.S. inaction on
energy.
"They are looking to our country
to see whether we have the will,
the resolve, to deal squarely with
our energy problems, which are
also becoming their problems,"
Carter said.
He went on to link the energy
bills to the economic health of
Western democracy."... In Paris
and in Brussels ; our own allies ex
pressed concern about whether
we can and will enact strong
energy legislation,” Carter told a
news conference Jan. 13. “If our
own economy is not strong, if our
strength is being sapped be ex
cessive imports, then we can’t
provide the kind of leadership and
stability on which the economic
well-being of the Western democ
racies rest so heavily.”
And there was more.
With the value of the dollar
down in world money markets,
and the $45 billion annual price
tag of oil imports a factor in that
decline, Carter said his energy
program would help deal with that
situation by reducing dependence
on foreign oil.
“It would improve our trade
situation, our national economy,
the strength of the dollar in a fun
damental way.”
Furthermore, he said, uncer
tainty about energy policy is con
tributing to high interest rates and
also to trouble on Wall Street,
where stock prices have been
going down.
Jody Powell, the White House
press secretary, said the lack of
energy legislation was a factor in
Carter’s effort to deal with nuclear
proliferation. He said it was dif
ficult to convince other nations,
such as India, that the United
States is serious about avoiding
nuclear proliferation when there
has been no action to curb the use
of oil and other natural fuels.
In addition, Carter has said ex
cessive oil imports are causing
unemployment, 40,(XX) jobs for
every $1 billion increase in im
ports. “With those dollars that go
overseas we are in effect export
ing American jobs,” he said.
There’s no question that all
those problems are related to
energy. There’s little doubt that
they will persist, with or without the
administration energy program. It
represents a beginning in con
fronting energy problems, and it
would, as Carter has said, reflect a
national will to deal with them.